Good Dolly
by BlueVase
Summary: When a certain doll keeps returning to the Turner household, drastic measures will have to be taken to get the haunted toy to stay away.


**Based on the picture the BBC posted of Shelagh, Patrick, and a rather horrible doll.**

 **Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for being my beta.**

The doll started to appear in the strangest of places.

Timothy had bought it for Angela from a second-hand store, and had given it to her for Christmas. Though she had played with it dutifully the first few days, dressing it in some of Sister Monica Joan's more wonky cardigans, it had quickly become apparent that she didn't like the doll much.

"When it is her birthday, we can give her a prettier doll, one with real hair," Shelagh had said one night as she slipped between the sheets. "You know how she loves to brush mine. I'm afraid baby dolls don't have a lot of hair at all."

Patrick had thought that was not the only thing that was wrong with the toy, but he had wisely refrained from commenting too much. He had not entirely been able to hide his relief when the doll had been firmly put on the pile of things they would not take with them to the new house, though.

Then, due to Teddy's birth, there had been no time to unpack every single box, and after that the Big Freeze had ensured that Shelagh had been cooped inside with little else to do but to shift through every box they'd brought with them. That was when the doll had made its reappearance.

"I thought we'd decided on donating this one," Shelagh had said, an adorable frown between her brows. She'd taken the toy from the box and straightened its shirt. "Patrick?"

"You packed the boxes, dearest. I wouldn't know," he'd said, trying not to stare too much at the thing's creepy face. It looked as if it didn't have eyelids, and was permanently under influence of some kind of drug.

"Yes, but you took it with you to clinic, didn't you?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Then how come it's here again?"

"Maybe it really didn't like being left behind," Patrick had said, and laughed to still the prick of unease in his stomach.

Shelagh had laughed, too, but not wholeheartedly. She'd put the baby doll back in the box. "We'll donate it again. Surely it can't object to finding a good home somewhere."

Patrick had forgotten about the doll, until one afternoon Timothy slammed it on the table. "I thought we'd moved so that I didn't have to share a room with Angela anymore. If she leaves her toys in my room, that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?" he groused, and went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich.

The hairs on Patrick's arms and neck rose as he looked at the doll's dead, mocking eyes. He shivered, and hesitated to touch it.

 _You're a grown man, Patrick Turner,_ he rebuked himself. Apart from being an adult he was also a man of science. Surely there was a logical explanation for this kind of thing? He stood, hastily tucked the toy under his arm, and went to Angela.

She was busy drawing at her desk, her legs not yet long enough to reach the ground. She rhythmically tapped them against her chair as she coloured, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

"Angel girl, is this yours?" he asked, squatting down next to her, holding up the doll at her eye height. He had to be careful not to trip over the marbles she had placed around the desk, or the toy train set that circled the bed.

She regarded it solemnly, then shook her head.

"Are you sure?"

"I had a doll before we moved, Daddy," she said, "but Mummy and I gave it away."

"Do you think this may be the same doll?" Patrick asked.

She pushed the toy baby away from her with wide eyes, then slung her arms around his neck and whispered: "I never liked that doll, Daddy. I think it can hear us."

"What do you mean?" Patrick whispered back, his large hand that gripped the doll sliding over its plastic ears.

"There's a monster that used to live under my bed. It has left. Maybe the doll has something to do with it."

Sweat prickled at the nape of his neck. "Well, in that case I will banish this doll to the attic where it can do no harm," he decided.

Angela opened one of the drawers of her desk and handed him a heavy pouch.

"Marbles?"

"Some monsters like marbles. They forget what they need to do if they stare at them," Angela said, her eyes big and glittering.

Patrick swallowed, then took the proffered beads of glass. He felt a bit light-headed as he stood.

"Now don't worry about it anymore, Daddy," Angela said, returning to her drawing.

"I won't, Angel girl," Patrick said, letting his endearing daughter soften the stab of fear that had grabbed his heart like a closed fist only moments before. "Nothing that Daddy can't handle," he added, and left her room whistling a jaunty tune, doing his best to convince both his daughter and himself that he really felt in control.

He left the doll in the attic surrounded by two rings of marbles, exactly like Angela had said. He did his best not to feel too foolish as he placed them on the wooden boards. One look at the pouty mouth of the doll was enough to inspire little waves of fear, though. He put an empty box over the entire affair. He had to mentally steel himself not to run down the stairs as he left, feeling as if something was watching him.

There were things other than potentially haunted dolls that had kept him busy for several weeks after.

But then the thing somehow escaped the marbles and box, because one evening Patrick found it in the bathroom.

It was a rare time indeed when Shelagh and he could take a bath together, but since they had an au pair, there had been a bit more possibility for… physical intimacy. Another excellent reason for hiring Magda.

Patrick and Shelagh had had a very satisfactory bout of lovemaking, and had decided to have a bath both to get clean and to spend a bit more time awake in each other's company. A hot bath on a cold winter's eve with his wife wrapped in his arms was a good, relaxing way to prepare for sleep. Tonight, they hadn't gotten that far; seemingly sentient plastic baby dolls suddenly appearing on the bottom of the bathtub were a good way to ruin it.

Patrick let out a scream ( _definitely_ not like a little girl, since was a grown man) and threw a bar of soap at the doll. It fell into the water with a splash and hit the doll against the temple, shifting it more closely to the spout.

Shelagh was with him in an instant, her hair deliciously mushed. "What? What is it?" she asked, a small hand on his arm.

He pointed to the doll.

A rapping on the bathroom door almost elicited another one of his screams ( _NOT_ like a little girl. Really.)

"Mr Turner?" Magda asked.

"Patrick, you have some explaining to do," Shelagh whispered, clutching his arm as she stared at the plastic face that seemed to grin from beneath the rippling water.

"Do you think we need to do an exorcism?" Patrick asked.

Shelagh shot him a pointed look as she kissed Teddy's head. Their little baby boy had awoken from all the tumult, and it was only now that Shelagh walked around with him in her arms that he started to become drowsy again.

"Do you think the doll is possessed?" Magda asked. She pinched a plastic hand between thumb and index finger, and moved the doll's arm. Water dripped on her pyjamas.

"The Anglican church does do exorcisms, right?" he asked Shelagh again. His wife had, after all, been a nun once. Could nuns perform exorcisms? He wasn't sure. But if she couldn't then surely she knew someone who could?

"There must be a rational explanation for why this doll keeps popping up," Shelagh said, giving Patrick another of her looks, this one saying _get a hold of yourself, Mr nonbeliever._ Or maybe it was _not in front of the au pair, please._ He wasn't exactly sure.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to tell her _I'm sorry but dolls just freak me out,_ but he couldn't be certain whether he'd conveyed that right. All Shelagh did was furrow her brow at him and drop another kiss on Teddy's head.

"It's certainly strange that this doll keeps reappearing," Magda said in her thick accent. "One of my friends had a doll like that back in Hungary."

"What did you do with it?" Shelagh asked.

Magda looked up with a fierce determination in her dark eyes. "Don't worry, Mrs Turner. I will take care of this one." She stood and went to the doorway, then halted on the threshold and turned back. "I know where the salt is, and I have a Bible of my own. Do you have a shovel?"

"Are you going to decapitate it?" Patrick asked.

"We have one in the shed," Shelagh said.

"Don't worry. This doll is your concern no longer," Magda said, and left.

"Does she mean that?" Patrick asked. "Is she serious?"

"She seems convinced."

"What kind of requirements do they have for that au pair agency?"

"I wouldn't know, dearest," Shelagh said as she put Teddy down in his cot, "but I think we should get Angela here with us. Just to be sure."

"And Timothy?"

"The boy sleeps like a rock… Let's just get him to be sure."

"Right. I'm on it," Patrick said, and sauntered to the door to at least give his wife the illusion that he felt in control.

From the sigh she issued it sounded as if she wasn't buying it.

They slept fitfully that night, and came to the breakfast table with eyes dusted violet.

"Mr Turner. A word, please," Magda said, and took him aside, into the hallway. There, she showed him a mangled doll's head. "This doll will trouble you no longer."

"Right. Thank you, Magda. Remind me to always call you in cases of suspected demonic possession. Oh, and to never cross you if you have a shovel."

"Such a pleasing conversation this is, Mr Turner," she said.

"My pleasure."

The doll never appeared again.


End file.
